What they didn't clarify is that the deer at Nara are a different breed from all other deer known to man and that what they should have said was "Watch out for the deer!". This picture really doesn't really do justice to the many hundreds of deer that roam the parks and pedestrianised streets as if they own the place. Rather than being remotely cautious of humans, they have come to recognise them as providers of the infamous "deer biscuits" that anyone can pick up for 150 yen.
A warning to anyone getting excited now, the deer aren't stupid. They have come to recognise when someone is in possession of the deer biscuits and make a beeline for you and can be quite persistent in their demand of your biscuits. If you stay away from the biscuits however, you will find that they are quite calm and even gentle.
That wasn't all there was to see in Nara, the home of a UNESCO listed World Heritage site. In fact, there are more temples and more shrines, including the impressive Giant Bhudda which was, well, pretty big.
By this point, I was starting to get a bit templed out. I recognise that this is a long trip and that there will be many, many more temples and shrines of various religions to visit so it's probably best not to OD on them in the first week.
The afternoon therefore was spent at the local Sega World where Johan impressed me with his considerable driving skills by beating me not once but twice at Super Mario's go-kart racing. He then proceeded to also beat me at a bizarre game (only in Japan) where two people played together as a hulking male zombie and a petit green female zombie who fall in love and try to excape from a complex where they were held.
Dinner was at a Japanese-style burger joint which had remarkably tiny but tasty burgers, followed by a take-away sushi tray which we ate back at the hostel followed by some tasty (bean-flavoured?) snacks that we bought earlier.
I'm very tired now, all the walking is surely good for me but man I'm beat. Today has been quite a quiet day so hopefully tomorrow I will have a little more energy!
So, before I let the wife completely take over this column, I thought I'd add a little summary of the first week on the road and look a little ahead as well..
Tokyo was the perfect start to the trip, its just like a big city anywhere in the world. But its just that little more difficult to communicate and understand what is going on, since the ability to read is slightly impeded. We had three really great days in Tokyo though with the highlight coming on the first day, the fishmarket and wandering through an almost deserted downtown Tokyo in the early morning.
As for Kyoto and Nara, it seems they are more tourist intense (though that might be an illusion due to Tokyo's size) and as soon as you step off the train you are attacked by tourist information officials showing you all you have to do. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing, since it is more difficult getting around (read no underground) and you rely more on the information they feed you.
So the rest of this week we'll be spending in Nara and Osaka, before we return to Tokyo for a night of Sumo wrestling (watching!!) and the flight to Beijing, which hopefully will ease us into China just like Tokyo eased us into Japan.
And as a final note, I'd like to start a hopefully regular occurance of... lets say interesting observations.. The first week has brought three really interesting signs.
The first one in downtown Tokyo, obviously a training area for pedestrians, as there is no other explanation for it. There are a lot of pavements in Japan, but I haven't seen any other warning signs anywhere.
The second sign was at the station in Kyoto, and it kind of speaks for itself..
And the final one, is another loo-related story I am afraid, after the interesting expereince with the features of Japanese toilets I have been staying well clear of any experiments. After all it is quite warm here anyway, so I don't need a heated toiletseat thank you very much. And sometimes they provide enough entertainment just the way they are, yesterday I spend about 5 minutes looking for the button that did the 'flush' operation, only to realise it was a lever on the side, what will they come up with next I wonder?? But I digress, the picture Vaniah located was in a more 'basic' model..
The day started innocently enough, breakfast at the hostel, sitting there and chatting with a lovely couple from Barcelona sitting beside us. They had spent 4 days in Kyoto and were leaving that day so naturally we asked them what the highlight of their visit has been. They suggested the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine as a must-see place so with our JR pass in hand and a few hours to spare we headed to Inari station.
The shrine complex was deceptively ordinary as we entered and observed the now-usual rituals of washing, ringing a bell and clapping before each of the shrines. We followed the throngs of tourists and local Japanese people alike through the path through the many torii (orange gates) towards the next shrine. We were surprised to find that after that shrine, the gates continued, each set getting a little steeper and moving further up the mountain and into the forest and away from the civilization below.
After a short while, what started as a desire to see what came next, became a compulsion to reach the top of this (now clear) mountain. Needless to say, after an hour and a bit Johan bounded up the last set of stairs and claimed victory. I didn't mind, reaching the top really only meant that we could then head downhill for a bit :)
Back to Kyoto and lunch at the food market (beautiful but overpriced) we headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and headed back to the train station. We passed a street celebration along the way, complete with flags and children drumming. It seemed to be everywhere and quite friendly. Reminded me that the Japanese were a very community minded people which was lovely. Our last day in Kyoto has come to an end so we head to our next destination - Nara. Our first sights of Nara where very lovely - it is much smaller than Tokyo and Kyoto so life is much slower. The food looked better and cheaper, and to top it off there was a beautiful pond overlooked by a beautiful temple right near where our hotel was supposed to be.
Of course the preverbal fly appeared in the form of our hotel room. It's always interesting to learn something new about yourself and what better way to do so than when you're travelling. Needless to say we will be providing a less than spectalular review of the hotel and we moved into a mixed dorm in a local hostel instead. Contingency funds well spent I think.
Anyway, the hostel owners are looking at me funny now, I think they want us to go to bed so I shall oblige them :) Until next time... g'night.
We woke up this morning to an overcast and grey Tokyo view and are going to bed to the sound of raindrops on the roof of our Japanese-style hostel in Kyoto and we're still happy! That is because today was a travel day therefore the best day possible for it to rain.
First stop, Shinagawa station to pick up our Japan Rail pass and reserve a seat on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. I have yet to decide if this is actually a cheap alternative to getting individual tickets or the Japanese reaction to the millions of questions that stupid tourists ask them, in English, about getting trains on this mildly confusing rail system. Better to make rail travel easy on almost all trains to the tourists for a price that won't make the locals jealous. Consider me cynical, but that does seem to be the rational response :)
Either way, for the next 7 days, we can easily jump on almost any Japan Rail (JR) train and travel anywhere in Japan quickly and very easily. Works for me!!
After going on to a hostel booking website last night and picking a place within our budget range that seemed to be reasonably central, we were pleasantly surprised to find, down a little backstreet of Kyoto, a lovely little Japanese-style hostel complete with matresses on the ground and bamboo mats. The very friendly staff were quick to explain the ropes and when we inquired about a tea ceremony, made the reservations for us quickly and easily. The hostel even included high speed, wireless internet access in our room which was included in the price. Sweet!
The tea ceremony was private (just Johan and myself with our lovely hostess) and we both got the chance to give it a go - I have to confess that Johan got more "excellents" than me though I'm not sure if it's because he did a better job, or if our host just fancied him. Either way, it was an interesting insight into the Japanese culture which has persisted throughout the ages, and a perfect indoor activity when it's pouring with rain outside!
Friday turned out to be a temple day in Tokyo. To be fair, there aren't that many temples that we could find in Tokyo, I think there are a few there, but not like some other places that I've been where you cannot sneeze for another temple...
Our first stop was Asakusa, which we had been told was a top place to visit if you only have a short amount of time in Tokyo. Can I hear "tourist trap"??? We followed a walking tour guide in a book that we had picked up at the Times Destinations show in London last year which unlike Nakamise Shopping Arcade is worth a visit.
However, at the end of the shopping street, the dedicated tourist is rewarded with the sight of the Asakusa Karinon Temple complex which is made up of a huge temple (currently being refurbished so we have no idea what it really looks like), a major shrine and a complex of other temple-like buildings with multiple Buddha and small-god shrines. As with all such buildings, I was struck by their beauty and a little jealous that these people had such an uplifting environment where they go to make their prayers known to their gods. Don't get me wrong here, I appreciate the freedom and flexibility of Christianity which allows us to pray to God in all situations and in any place, but sometimes if I'm praying to God on a bus or in a crowded canteen, I can't help wondering if I'm being irreverent...
The rest of the walk was a bit of a write-off as well so with a little trepidation we headed for Roppongi. I liked Roppongi, though not enough to take any pictures (sorry), it was a beautiful, modern construction complete with everything the dedicated ex-pat would want. After a coffee, it was off to Takeshita Dori street which was allegedly the favoured hangout of the teenage fashionistas and goth princesses. Clearly 1:30 pm was a little too early for them so it was off to the second religious place of the day - Meiji.
Now we were really lucky with the Meiji shrine. It was a beautiful but warm day which made the walk in the woods to reach the shrine particularly pleasant.
Along the way, there were several "gates" that the visitor had to pass through. To give you a idea of the size of some of these gates, here is one which shows me standing at the base of one of them. This one was made from "Japanese cedars" which were apparently donated by a pious Japanese person.
The shrine itself is not a religious place as perhaps you or I would consider. There was no god that was being worshiped in its complex, rather it commemorates one of the Emperors of Japan who ruled during the Meiji period from 1868 to 1912. Not so long ago!
The word Meiji means "enlightened rule" and this is how the Emperor saw himself. He ended the previously held feudalistic rule and ushered in a way whereby Japan started its move towards a democratic way of government where people of all classes could be involved in the governance of the country. Many of the policies and institutions that he set up are believed to be the springboard for much of Japans swift growth and modernisation, a feature of Tokyo which we have certainly observed.
At the shrine itself we were again very lucky. Friday it seems, is a very good day to get married as we saw not one, but two weddings taking place. At least we assumed that they were weddings... They were very beautiful though when we saw the help that the bride needed to get up stairs in her costume, we did wonder a bit about the practicality of those garments :) At least you don't have to wear them everyday anymore...!
This beautiful guest (right) is taking a photo while wearing a kimono and is a great example of your modorn Meiji Japanese person who embraces modernatity jet still hold on to the traditions of the Japanese people.
The rest of the shrine complex was also beautiful. We visited the gardens which were supposed to be awash with the colours of lilies and azaleas however September really isn't the month for gardens... Perhaps a few weeks earlier we would have caught some late summer flowers and in a few weeks time we would catch the autumnal bursts of colour but right now, everything was green. We had to be satisfied with these colourful fish...
What do you do when the jet-lag gets you up at 4am in Tokyo??
The short answer is : you find a fish market, then hang out at the imperial gardens (then head back to the hotel for a lunchtime nap). But that does not mean it was an uneventful day and the long story of it goes something like this...
Since we both failed to stay awake past 6pm last night, which is about when we expected to pass out, we woke up before the crack of dawn, after a solid 10 hour sleep. Being wide awake at 4 am in Tokyo has its advantagtes though as thats when the fishmarkets open! So of course we took advantage of the situation and made tracks for that. After some searching we found it, and on the way acquired a handful of other travellers who were also lost and looking for it. And it was quite interesting...
It was heaving, both with tourists and employees, and watching all the fishmongers was fascinating - they were all quite specialised at their tasks. You had the furrier boys who only pulled carts laden with the produce, the gutters who only gutted fish, so naturally you missed it if you blinked. Then there were the price-taggers who semed to only be restocking and pricing fish and of course the purhasers who inspect and buy fish at the auction. This was the piece-de-resistence (pardon my french) and watching the auctioneer shout prices like a machine-gun and hearing the bells indicating the imminent end of the auction was quite catching. Since this is the event most tourists come for, apparently we have become a nuicanse, so we are not allowed to roam freely anymore but instead we are put in a tiny area near the back overlooking the least interesting bit, the frozen tuna sales. Take a picture of the auctions outside of the 'tourist-pen' and you are quickly ushered inside by a man with a multi-lingual sign. This applies even if you have escaped the pen, as we quickly found out, but we did manage to escape it in the end and went hunting for the breakfast sushi stalls. But only after deciding that this little fellow we found earlier was indeed the ugliest fish around. Can anyone supply us with a name for it? We'd like to know.
After shadowing a group of Japanese looking tourists (revealed by their lack of wellingtons) we did find a little hole-in-the-wall that served sushi, and it was indeed straight from the market and very yummy. The only thing we lacked was a little elbow-room, but who can complain about that really, and of course coffee, which no breakfast is complete without, but Starbucks on the way to the Imperial palace, which was the next stop, fixed that.
It was about an hour or so of a walk to get to the Palace Imperial gardens, including the coffee break, through a virtually empty Tokyo, remember, after all these adventures it is still only 7 a.m!! Which we only realised by the fact that we were customers #2 and 3 at Starbucks this morning a full 5 minutes after they opened :). But even getting there at almost 8 the path to the Palace gardens was virtually empty, and strolling around them as the morning sun started to rise above the skyrises.
>>>Vaniah<< Johan has nodded off so I'm taking over. As he mentioned, the journey to the Imperial gardens was possibly better than the gardens themselves and very beautiful in the cloudless Tokyo morning sunshine. When we got to the entrance of the gardens, we were disappointed to find that they were closed, and only after a brief discussion amongst ourselved realised that it didn't open until 9am and it was indeed only 8:30! So we wandered off to amuse ourselves for half an hour but instead were previleged to find this guy enjoying the peace of the morning. I can assure you that we kept a respectful distance.
The gardens themselves were quite beautiful, I think though that they were designed to be enjoyed in the springtime when all the cherry and plum trees are in full bloom and the gardens become a sea of colour. On our visit however the predominant colour was green and without a guide to tell us the story behind the gardens, it was only a peaceful and lovely place.
The final big adventure of the day was lunch. By 11:30 we were both ravenous so determined not to spend more than we should we looked for a local lunchtime place and found this outside a place full of local Japanese businessmen...
The idea seemed to be that you order and pay for you food using the machine, then go inside where it's been prepared for you and pick it up. Of course, it's all in Japanese however some of the buttons have helpful pictures on them. After randomly pressing a few buttons a note was printed. Afraid that we had mistakenly ordered half the menu, we went inside and signaled panic to the chef. He then came outside and helpfully showed us how it worked. Phew! Btw, if you'd like to know the secret, e-mail us and we will be happy to reveal all :)
After a final random meeting with a very pleasant Englishman who gave us some suggestions of places in Tokyo to visit, we headed back to the hotel to have a nap before meeting up with some friends tonight. And here we are...
What they didn't clarify is that the deer at Nara are a different breed from all other deer known to man and that what they should have said was "Watch out for the deer!". This picture really doesn't really do justice to the many hundreds of deer that roam the parks and pedestrianised streets as if they own the place. Rather than being remotely cautious of humans, they have come to recognise them as providers of the infamous "deer biscuits" that anyone can pick up for 150 yen.
recognise when someone is in possession of the deer biscuits and make a beeline for you and can be quite persistent in their demand of your biscuits. If you stay away from the biscuits however, you will find that they are quite calm and even gentle.
